ABSTRACT
It is usually thought to be around the end of 1920s or die early 1930s that Korean intellectuals became interested in Kierkegaard's thought and began to read his writings. On August 15, 1945, the independence came like a thief. Suffering and sadness in the Japanese colonial period were changed into joy, and Koreans were ecstatic at their sudden freedom. Pusan, the provisional capital located in the southern part of Korea, was full of an atmosphere of despair mixed with worry, anxiety, fear, and solitude. For Koreans existentialism was now an experience of daily life itself, not a good theory from Europe. In the 1960s, after the May 16 Military Coup d'Etat in 1961, Korea entered an industrial age. The struggle for democracy in Korea became fierce in the 1980s, and the movement for the unification of the two political powers on the Korean peninsula also became intense.
